The Ion War

by Colin Kapp

  From the method of Liam's introduction, Bama had first appeared to be an underground city, built not as a dome but as a confusing network of hewn corridors leading to illogically-placed establishments. It was only when they had penetrated to the upper levels that he began to understand that Bama was in fact built on the surface, but that all the interconnections between the various buildings were carried underground to avoid any dependence on the conditions of the prevailing storm. As he entered some of the buildings proper, he was also struck by the impressive majesty of what living could be like given virtually unlimited power and resources and a well-developed sense of practical values coupled with an innate hankering for sunlight.

  Garside's offices were in a bluff tower whose massive integrity was unshaken by the storm which blazed beyond the triple-glazed windows. Here Liam was handed the actual documents with which Terra announced her findings of insurrection on Lightning, and her intention of countering with armed intervention. He read the papers carefully, then laid them back on the desk and looked up to meet Garside Raad's gaze.

  "Don't say it, Liam! I know you told us so. The question is what's the next move."

  "How much government backing have you got?"

  "They've given me absolute control. That's why I asked you here. We've seen what happened to the others without the benefit of Liam's war. Well, you've proved your point right down the line. This time we want to try it your way. We're meeting the President for supper, but I wanted to have this discussion first."

  "I can't promise you miracles, you understand? My overall plans concern the salvation of the Hub, not individual worlds. It's conceivable we may lose Lightning before we can stop Terra."

  "That's a prospect we've already faced. History tells us we're already lost. If you can salvage or save us anything at all, we'll be that much ahead of the game. We're completely at your disposal."

  "Those are the only conditions I can accept. Normally, the course of the battle is carefully engineered by Terran architects. This time there must be a different sequence, as defined by the scribble-pad of Liam Liam, you understand? There is something the Terrans will be bringing with them which it is absolutely vital we acquire. It must be acquired even if we lose Lightning in the process. Now I suggest we start discussion of the details before we meet the President."

  The Terran campaign against Lightning ran into trouble from the start. Unexpectedly, their menacing orbital fleet around the planet came under fire, not from ground-based resources but from sophisticated and unidentified ships which leaped suddenly out of tachyon space, released series after series of punishing missiles, and leaped back out of normal space before answering fire could be made effective. There was even a suspicion that some of the missiles had a tachyon-space capability of their own, and had been pre-directed at the ship-chain from a safe position many parsecs away.

  Although the Terran forces learned to live with the situation, their losses were such as to make it necessary to foreshorten the whole campaign and thus remove the necessity to maintain a vulnerable fleet in orbit around the planet. They deposed the government of Lightning, drafted in a corps of military administrators, carried out severe punitive raids on any manifest pockets of resistance, and generally satisfied themselves that whoever was attacking the ship-chain was doing so with resources beyond the reach of the indigenous opposition which still functioned on the planet. In the meantime their space-borne losses tripled.

  The Terrans had identified two substantial pockets of resistance on Lightning, both occupying former-city sites well suited for defence and virtually proof against space-bombing by the sheer strength of the rock-mass under which their installations and supply-lines were concealed. An attempt to over-run these areas with conventional space-marine forces was met by a conspiracy of terrifying weather and good defence tactics, and turned into a major disaster for the Terran force. That same evening they also lost their orbiting flagship and an unnerving percentage of their local high-command.

  The Terran Reserve Commander picked up the reins immediately, found the morale of his force shatteringly low, and determined to end the whole campaign as swiftly as possible. Thus, under cover of one of the most drastic space bombardments ever devised, the little ship of Para-Ion Command left the womb of its mother ship and made its way vengefully down to the planet's surface. Soon its ghostly company had entered one of the main areas of resistance, and was exploring a vertible catacomb of underground defences, encountering very little opposition save for mines and booby-traps set in abundance, which the intruders took in their stride. Of the supposed defenders there was no sign at all.

  Suspecting the sort of trap they had encountered on Halcyon, the officer commanding the phantom warriors ordered an immediate withdrawal, but he was too late. Whereas the explosion on Halcyon had been the calculated blow-up of a nuclear power plant, the blast which opened up the ancient and unwilling mountains of Lightning was an ultra-sophisticated fusion weapon. This time there seemed little doubt of the ion warriors' destruction.

  Nor was this the end of the period's dismay. While the orbiting fleet was examining the evidence of the catastrophic blast which had shattered their secret weapon, a new alert was sounded. Like a hundred tiny piranha fish, single-man lifecraft of a size individually too small to trigger the long-range alarms, had risen unnoticed from the planet's surface and were converging on the mother ship, which, with her screens inactive, was attempting to launch the sister to the ship lost in the surface blast.

  Terran fury turned to dismay when it was found that there was no way in which they could turn their arms on the miniscule fleet of intruders without a very real chance of damaging or destroying their own unshielded mother ship. The Reserve Commander was in an agony of indecision, not knowing whether to order the destruction of everything in that area regardless€”in which case he lost not only the mother ship but the second ghost-wagon and its ion-crew as well€”or whether to take on the newcomers with more conventional space-commando tactics. He chose the latter course, and played right into Liam Liam's hands.

  In order to launch the commando pinnaces, it was necessary for the warships to lift their own shields. Scarcely had this been done when a number of unidentified spacecraft leaped out of tachyon space in incredibly close proximity, and sitting undisturbed behind their own screens, calmly started picking the exposed Terran warships out of space. There followed a period of chaos, in which the Terran carrier ships hastily jettisoned their own commando forces and strove to ensure their own survival. So precise was Liam's anticipation of the event that a quarter of the orbital warforce had been destroyed before the remaining Terran vessels had secured themselves sufficiently to begin aggressive action. At this point the unidentified attackers withdrew. When the Terrans finally came to count the cost of the battle, they were forced to include one mother ship and its back-up 'ghost-wagon' daringly hijacked from the centre of the fleet.

  That night there was rejoicing on Lightning, but it was a revelry overshadowed with the knowledge that Terra's final retribution would be massive and terrible. Nevertheless, Liam Liam's signal from the Starbucket with the news that the mission had been a complete success was a promise for the future. Perhaps Lightning itself would not escape despoilation at Terra's hands, and Liam's private space army, though daily growing stronger by anonymous donations of money and ships, was yet but a gnat in the jungle of Terra's might; but here at last was a shaft of hope which could penetrate down through even Lightning's brooding skies, and its touch was as welcome as that of their own shy sun.

  CHAPTER XIV

  Only later did Dam discover from the mad-eyed Fiendish that his own recent exposure to the para-ion furnace had actually taken him through three grades of the training exercise simultaneously. He was now separated from his initial training squad and set to work with a group of more advanced trainees, of which Fiendish was one. Amongst these, the attitude to training was entirely different, because the selective murder of those physically or psychol
ogically unable to respond to the effort had already reduced the survivors to those of a like type€”fit, tough, and educated men, mainly ex-colonial officers, grimly united in their intention of surviving whatever they were forced to endure and to watch constantly for the opportunity to escape.

  This advanced group was now engaged in regular training in gas and natural environments and in the use of various radiation weapons while in para-ion state. Dam was particularly interested in 'open atmosphere' work, in which, after having been given an ion-identity in the paraformer, the training took place primarily in the open fields of the establishment, where the potential for escape was obvious. It was here, however, that Dam also began to appreciate how carefully woven were the traps which kept them in bondage.

  Each time they adopted an ion-identity, a present time limit was programed into their information modulator packs; and before the expiration of the set time it was necessary for each to return through the paraformer for the re-establishment of normal molecular identity. Failure to meet this deadline meant complete destruction as the modulator pack ceased to maintain the energy shell which maintained them in ion-state. There was a dramatic example of this when they were working in a paraphosphorus identity out in the damp grass of the long field. One of their number, a Terran call-named Spiteful, suddenly burst into a phosphorus fire that consumed him utterly. The agony of his cries as he partially reverted to his normal identity at the same time as burning away was a shocking reminder that they all continued their existence balanced on the razor's edge of sufferance.

  Absolute had watched the man's agonized death with an equanimity which convinced Dam that she had actually contrived to achieve the fellow's death. Certainly she showed no reaction other than a slightly critical contempt. Dam shot a look at Fiendish, and was surprised to note, after the initial shock had died away, that his wild expression relaxed to one of questing speculation rather than anger or horror or any of the emotions that might have been expected. For his part, Dam could scarcely wait for the opportunity to regain normal molecular identity. He felt the need to be violently sick.

  From this and similar incidents, many things about the exercise were becoming clear to Dam, particularly the point of the earlier exercises designed to encourage deliberate acceptance of pain. The para-ion transition was an experience seemingly suited to stimulate all the nerves of the body, and repeated exposure to its torment began to build up a conditioned resistance to the ordeal which at times became insurmountable by will-power. Even the most practised would occasionally arrive at a point of hysteria where they were literally unable to force their limbs to take them into the paraformer. So high were the penalties to be paid for delay in achieving the transition within the set time that the group would aid each other by main force if necessary, and this had bred a mutual dependence and comradery which grew stronger the more critical the training conditions became.

  It was after the phosphorus burn-up, with the nausea flooding inside him, that Dam found his limbs would not respond to his command. Fiendish was the one who thrust him forcibly into the paraformer chamber, and it was Fiendish who caught his retching shoulders when the transition was over and guided him away from Absolute's malevolent attention.

  "Stick it out, Lover! Sometimes it happens." Dam shook his head sickly. "I guess it was that phosphorus burn which touched me off."

  "I know what you mean€”but there's another way of viewing things like that. Statistically it could be working in our favour."

  "How do you make that out?"

  "The initial intake here is mainly of colonials, with a very few Terrans. Because of the continual wastage during training, the top percentage who make the course right to the end are almost exclusively colonials."

  "I hadn't realized that."

  "There's an even more curious fact. Talking percentages, not only is the indigenous Terran intake lower, but their loss-rate is significantly higher. Sometimes I'd almost swear that bitch Absolute was killing them off deliberately."

  "That doesn't make sense, Fiendish."

  "I know it." Fiendish's wild stare became madder than ever. "But one day the organization's going to make one little slip€”and on that day they're going to find a very mean and bitter colonial army corps with para-ion capability sitting right in their midst."

  "You think the organization's likely to make a slip?"

  "Things are changing. Rumour has it they've had a lot of losses of para-ion people in the field. That's why the training schedule here has been accelerated. Also there's a new technique on its way. Human nature being what it is, someone somewhere down the line has to make a mistake once the routine is broken. Keep watching for it, Lover. I've a feeling that time is on our side."

  The following day they were introduced to the concept of 'transience' in para-ion work; and the method of its presentation was notable for its dramatic effect and for providing an excuse for Absolute to work out some of the strange twists in her character. As usual when she was feeling vicious she chose to concentrate on Dam. For a reason which had not been explained, Dam had been clad that morning not in his usual fine mesh suit but in one coarser and stiffer, which hampered and slowed his movements considerably. Perversely, Absolute had chosen complex exercises involving climbing and leaping between high concrete towers for the morning's work, laying stress on the advantages of the para-ion state to give reduced weight while maintaining normal muscle power.

  Clad in his ungainly suit, Dam performed badly right from the start. His performance was not improved by Absolute's critical cursing and bitching at his heels. Physically almost exhausted by the unfair struggle and irked close to the end of his endurance, Dam was finally led to protest. She rounded on him instantly, a look of challenging and amused incredulity on her face.

  "I hope you're not complaining, Lover€”after all I've done for you!"

  "So it amuses you to play games? How does that assist my training in para-ion technique?"

  "More than you suspect. You're my star pupil€”very well, let's see you burning brightly. You'll repeat the last exercise, but in half the original time."

  "You're mad! It can't be done. Especially not in this suit."

  "Nonetheless, you'll do it." Her eyes were very dangerous. "Otherwise I may have to transfer my attentions elsewhere, my Lover." She looked round, seized an auto-carbine from one of the guards, and pointed it at Dam menacingly. "Now move!"

  Knowing it was hopeless before he even started, Dam made an attempt. He stood no chance at all. In a leap between two concrete towers he could not gain sufficient momentum to carry him over the gap. He plunged down between the towers in a fall which would have killed him had he not been in a para-ion identity, and even in his ionic condition he was severely dazed and shaken.

  As he collected himself he heard a sort of snarl and turned to find Absolute moving towards him, carbine in hand and a hideous determination on her face. Dam had just opened his mouth to say something, when she fired the carbine point-blank at his chest. Jaw still dropped, the amazed Dam heard the bullet ricochet from the base of the practice tower behind him, and knew that it must have passed right through his body although he felt no pain or any effect of injury.

  Eyes narrowed with the kind of passion Dam had seen on her face at the time of his first entry into a paraformer, Absolute switched the carbine on to automatic fire and discharged the whole magazine at him in a pattern which should have cut him into pieces. Not until the last bullet had left the barrel did she rest the weapon and allow her face to relax into a triumphant smile.

  "That did me a power of good, Lover! What did it do for you?"

  "Hell!" Dam had turned to examine the base of the practice tower, where the material had been shattered and fragmented by the repeated impact of the high-velocity projectiles. For himself he felt nothing out of the ordinary, yet he had to accept the fact that the contents of the entire magazine had passed through his body.

  "Transience," said Absolute. "Phenomena above a certa
in threshold velocity can pass through a body in para-ion state without disturbing the integrity of the information contained in the energy shell. Thus you should be able to survive weapon-fire or a near explosion. It's the slower-moving debris which will present more of a danger. And even there you still have an advantage€”albeit a painful one€”inasmuch as providing that the energy shell remains intact it can withstand considerable distortion before it fails to maintain the life analogue contained within."

  "Explain that to me," said Dam.

  "Briefly, you could be crushed alive to an incredible degree and still stand a good chance of survival. Of course, your analogue body would feel every normal indication of the injury until the original shell configuration had been restored, but that's a small price to pay for a kind of lesser immortality."

  "Or the price of the privilege of dying more than once?"

  She looked into his face, and her eyes said something deep but indefinable, then she turned and walked away, motioning the rest of the group back to form a wide arc. Realizing that another demonstration was about to take place, Dam remained where he was, still trying to come to terms with the idea of having been riddled with bullets and yet having survived. He had no wish to participate further in any of her new revelations about the potential of the para-ion state.

  It was only when something detonated somewhere near the top of one of the practice towers that Dam realized he was already a participant in the next demonstration. Summoning the whole of his para-ion capability, he attempted to leap clear, but the tower fragmented into large, precalculated pieces which fell on and around him, pinning him to the ground and crushing him mercilessly. As Absolute had predicted, his ion-analogue body felt every phase of the injury just as his natural body would have done, up to the point where merciful unconsciousness intervened to block his awareness of the pain .